Ben Roy

My 4 year old nephew was over at my place the other day, and his Grandma was going to read him a bed time story. He pulled out one of my favorite books from my childhood, "The Monster at the End of the Book". Just in case you've never read it (you really should), I'll tell you a little about it.

The book stars Grover from Sesame Street. He starts off at the beginning of the book by warning you that there's a terribly frightening monster at the end of the book. He tells you that you definitely don't want to get to the end of the book.

So of course you go to the next page. And there he is, surprised that you turned another page. He tries to reason with you, explaining that you're now closer to the end of the book and of course closer to the monster.

As the book goes on, he 'realizes' that you're not going to stop on your own, and gets increasingly aggressive about doing something to stop you. He chains up the pages, begs you, etc.

The interesting bit is that you've never seen a kid so anxious to get to the next page of the book. They barely even want you to finish reading the current page before they are grabbing to try to turn to the next. Even after they've read the book a hundred times and know exactly what's coming at the end, there's still this drive to move from page to page.

Of course there's an element of this that applies specifically to children. But I think there's a deeper psychology going on that's present in most people right on into adulthood. We don't like to be told what to do. We are intrigued by things that we're maybe not supposed to know. We have a hard time holding back our curiosity.

Just like that book draws kids (or kids at heart) to turn page after page, moving deeper towards that unknown (or not-so unknown) ending, there's a potential for campaigns, websites, sales funnels, or any other marketing vehicle to create a mystery, a taboo, something that people just can't help but be drawn towards.

At the end of the day, when you arrive at the end of the book and find out that the monster is just Grover, you enjoyed the ride so much that you're ready to flip back to the beginning and start all over.